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Community Work and Community Development: working with communities the African way
Jacob Rugare Mugumbate and Phillip Manyanye Bohwasi
How to cite this work: Mugumbate J R and Bohwasi P M (2021). Community Work and Community Development: working with communities the African way. Prepublication version in Ubuntu Social Work. Harare, ASWNet.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 5
2 Highlights 5
3 Objectives of this chapter 5
4 Skills and competences addressed in this chapter 6
5 Definitions of community work, community development and development 6
6 Goals of community work and community development 7
7 Guiding principles, ethics and values in community work and community development 7
8 African theoretical foundations of community work and community development 8
9 Process of community work or community development 9
10 Africa social, economic, cultural and political background 9
11 Strategies and examples of community work and community development 11
11.1 Economic strategies 11
11.1.1 Nhimbe/Jakwara (Zimbabwe), Harambee (Kenya) or Ubudehe (Rwanda) 11
11.1.2 Japato (food for work) 11
11.1.3 Mukando/Stokvel (rotational savings) 11
11.1.4 Family crafts and artisanship 12
11.1.5 Employment creation or employment services 12
11.1.6 Income generating projects (mabhindauko) 12
11.1.7 Mushandirapamwe (cooperatives) 13
11.1.8 Development and improvements of markets 13
11.1.9 Road construction or improvement 13
11.1.10 Village industries, value addition and processing 13
11.1.11 Investments and savings support 13
11.1.12 Social welfare grants and cash transfers 14
11.2 Educational strategies 14
11.2.1 Family and community education 14
11.2.2 School construction or improvement 14
11.2.3 Child work 15
11.2.4 National Youth Service 15
11.2.5 Vocational skills training 15
11.2.6 Decolonisation and Africanism education 15
11.3 Social strategies 16
11.3.1 Voluntary work parties 16
11.3.2 Zvipo (donations) 16
11.3.3 Borehole or water committees 16
11.3.4 Girinka 16
11.3.5 Umuganda (community day), ubunyarwanda and itorero ry’igihugu 16
11.3.6 Zunde raMambo 17
11.3.7 Support groups 17
11.3.8 Sharing child responsibility in the extended family 17
11.3.9 Sharing child responsibility in the community 17
11.3.10 Family and community guidance and mentoring 18
11.3.11 Child protection committees 18
11.3.12 Ceremonies and celebrations 18
11.3.13 Jenaguru, pfonda and related ceremonies 18
11.3.14 Community social responsibility 18
11.3.15 Online groups and communities 19
11.4 Agricultural and environmental strategies 19
11.4.1 Chisi and Chief’s fines for environmental degradation 19
11.4.2 Water harvesting 19
11.4.3 Cattle rearing, fattening and abattoirs 19
11.4.4 Cooperative farming 20
11.4.5 Field days, prize giving days, shows or master farmer awards 20
11.4.6 Farming and agriculture demonstrator, brigades or guides 20
11.4.7 Recycling 21
11.4.8 Machobane Farming System (MFS) 21
11.4.9 Madzoro (rotational livestock herding) 21
11.5 Psychological and spiritual strategies 21
11.5.1 Death ceremonies 21
11.5.2 Sports, recreation and entertainment strategies 22
11.5.3 Chema 22
11.5.4 Pre-migration, in-migration and post-migration training, education and awareness 22
11.6 Legal, administrative, political and security strategies 23
11.6.1 Dare 23
11.6.2 Promoting political participation 23
11.6.3 Formation and empowering associations 24
11.6.4 Neighborhood watch committee and community policing 24
11.6.5 Vigilante groups 24
11.6.6 Development committees 24
11.7 Health, food and nutrition strategies 24
11.7.1 Community and village health workers and birth attendants 25
11.7.2 Nutrition and herbal gardens and clubs 25
11.7.3 Traditional and religious healers and herbalists 25
11.7.4 Chirambamuriwo (beef committees) 25
11.7.5 Food relief (kutambirisa) 25
11.7.6 First aid and occupational hazards training 26
11.7.7 Mental health awareness 26
11.7.8 Reproductive mentoring, education and awareness 26
11.7.9 Sanitation improvement 26
11.8 Less useful and inappropriate strategies 27
12 Models of community work or community development 28
12.1 Sanga Development Foundation (SDF) multi-stakeholder community development model 28
12.2 Zvinoda Madzimai community social enterprise model 29
13 Pillars of community work or community development 29
13.1 The community 29
13.2 Community leaders 30
13.3 Local and national government 31
13.4 Community planners 31
13.5 Community workers, community development workers and volunteers 31
13.6 Children, youths, women and other interest groups 32
13.6.1 Non-government organizations (NGOs) 32
13.7 The plan 32
13.8 Social capital and social networks 33
14 Templates to use in community work or community development 34
14.1 Template 1: Community audit template 34
14.2 Template 2: Template to identify community needs and projects 34
1.1 Template 3: Intervention or implementation plan 35
1.2 Template 4: Evaluation or review template 36
1.3 Template 5: Stages to follow when meeting traditional leaders 36
15 Case studies 37
15.1 Case study 1: Initiating a community development project in Ethiopia 37
15.2 Case study 2: Sanga community in Zimbabwe 37
15.3 Case study 3: Zvinoda Madzimai Peanut Butter Making Project 40
16 Summary 43
17 Further and advanced knowledge 43
18 Questions for in class assessments and examinations 44
19 Potential questions for research 44
20 Glossary 46
21 References and recommended readings 48
Introduction
This chapter introduces community work and community development from an African ubuntu perspective. The chapter defines community work and community development and lists their objectives, guiding principles and ethics. Theories of working with communities are provided. These are ujamaa, ubuntu and the developmental approach that promotes social and economic development. Strategies and examples of community work and community development are provided, followed by the process and pillars of community work and community development. Readers will also find useful templates and detailed case studies. At the end of the chapter, it is expected that readers will have both theoretical knowledge and practical skills to conceptualize, plan, initiate, implement, review and close a community project in African contexts.
Highlights
These are the major features of this chapter:
• Grounded in African theories and values such as ubuntu, ujamaa and umuganda
• Over 60 examples community work and community development based on experience of authors
• Over 20 examples or strategies that are less useful or harmful for Africa
• Definitions and glossary of key terms
• Three detailed case studies
• Five templates for development workers
• Use of examples from African countries
• Use of African languages
• Blends theoretical knowledge of African development with practical skills
• Over 40 questions for essays, research projects and other assessments
Objectives of this chapter
After studying this chapter, readers will be expected to have acquired knowledge about:
• Definitions of community work and community development from an indigenous perspective
• Theoretical foundations of community work in Africa
• Objectives, guiding principles and ethics or values in community work and community development
• Process of community work or community development
• Models and pillars of community work
• Strategies community work and community development
Skills and competences addressed in this chapter
By the end of this chapter, readers will be expected to have acquired the following skills and competencies:
• Do a community work and community development audit of a selected community
• Identify community needs or problems that require community intervention.
• Identify the pillars of community work and community development of a specific community
• Identify economic and social drivers to community well-being and promote them
• Identify appropriate and indigenous intervention methods for a selected community.
• Develop an intervention or implementation plan for a selected community to generate community well-being.
• Ability to intervene and implement community programs that achieve self-help
• Offer capacity building to communities through the transfer of knowledge and skills for their empowerment, liberation and well-being
• Review or evaluate a community development program
• Support and encourage the establishment of growth-oriented community social enterprises that are both sustainable and market driven
• Ability to nurture community enterprises and local projects that meet community needs and are based on social and economic responsibility
• Ability to develop a project sustainability plan that determines project continuity
Definitions of community work, community development and development
Community work and community development are methods used in social work studies, community studies or development studies when working with communities. These methods focus on identifying social problems, and addressing challenges, threats or issues experienced by a community as a whole instead of just focusing on individuals as in casework. The worker is usually a catalyst, they do not take everything in their hands. They mobilize the community members to participate in all projects and empower them to achieve a mind-set for self-help. There is a slight difference between community work and community development as shown in the two definitions below.
Community work is a method of intervention that addresses immediate, short and medium-term problems, challenges, threats or issues and utilises community assets, opportunities and participation. The assets can be human, family, environmental, spiritual or otherwise and can also come from outside. Community work focuses on short-term welfare and addresses immediate needs, it is often reactive. Community work can be done on behalf of the community. For example, during a cyclone, community welfare needs will include safety, shelter, food and health. These can be provided by community workers.
Community development is a method of intervention that prevents and addresses long-term problems, challenges, threats or issues and utilises community assets, opportunities and participation. Community development focuses on long-term well-being and addresses long-term needs, it is often preventive and it empowers and builds capacity. Community development cannot be done on behalf of the community. For example, after a cyclone, community well-being needs will include prevention of property damage and loss of life during cyclones in future. This can be done by the community on its own or working with community development workers and other stakeholders.
Development is a process of ensuring that a community has all the tangible and non-tangible goods, infrastructure and services required to satisfy their short- to long-term needs. A developed community has all the tangible and non-tangible goods, infrastructure, human expertise and community services required to satisfy their short- to long-term needs.
Community work and community development share a lot in common. Both are concerned with community welfare and well-being. The two methods depend on the community as a foundation of intervention. The African theory on the same explains this better in that simba rehove ririmumvura (the power of the fish is within the water around it). Great individuals, great communities and entrepreneurs all succeed through the push, pull and support from their communities.
Goals of community work and community development
The goals of community work and community development include:
• Identifying community problems and community viable projects, community challenges, threat or issues
• Building awareness around communities of potential problems and viable projects that exist, the challenges and threat or relevant issues and ways to prevent, solve or take the opportunities available to them in their community
• Identifying community resources and mobilizing participants and stakeholders to generate well-being utilizing local resources
• Solving or preventing problems, challenges, threat or issues
• Empowering or building capacity of the community to solve problems, challenges, threat or issues
Guiding principles, ethics and values in community work and community development
• Ubuntu - ndiri nekuti tiri (I am because we are)
• Simba rehove riri mumvura (the power of the fish is within the water around it)
• Understanding and respecting community aspirations
• Focusing on community needs, problems, challenges, threats and issues
• Multi-stakeholder approach
• Developmental socio-economic approach
• Empowerment or capacity building
• Machobane principle – this means sustainability e.g. when farming, you can rotate, intercrop or use organic manures
• Self-drive for self-reliance
• Ujamaa, meaning community pulling together as one family, collective participation of all
• Umuganda meaning coming together for a common purpose
• Importance of leaders, including traditional leadership and aged people
African theoretical foundations of community work and community development
• Ujamaa is about creating a community identity, working collectively, decolonization from western methods (independence), self-reliance, building community cohesion, local production and well-being. Ujamaa also means and supports a multisectoral approach. Although this theory existed since times immemorial, it was popularized by the former President of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who asserted that a community or nation will achieve more if they pull together.
• Ubuntu theory also informs community work and community development. Ubuntu is a collection of values and practices that black people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. While the nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, they all point to one thing – an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world. the term ubuntu is expressed differently is several African communities and languages but all referring to the same thing. In Angola, it is known as gimuntu, Botswana (muthu), Burkina Faso (maaya), Burundi (ubuntu), Cameroon (bato), Congo (bantu), Congo Democratic Republic (bomoto/bantu), Cote d’Ivoire (maaya), Equatorial Guinea (maaya), Guinea (maaya), Gambia (maaya), Ghana (biako ye), Kenya (utu/munto/mondo), Liberia (maaya), Malawi (umunthu), Mali (maaya), Mozambique (vumuntu), Namibia (omundu), Nigeria (mutunchi/iwa/agwa), Rwanda (bantu), Sierra Leonne (maaya), South Africa (ubuntu/botho), Tanzania (utu/obuntu/bumuntu), Uganda (obuntu), Zambia (umunthu/ubuntu) and Zimbabwe (hunhu/unhu/botho/ubuntu). It is also found in other Bantu countries not mentioned here (Mugumbate and Chereni, 2020). Ubuntu community work and community development refers to social work that is theoretically, pedagogically and practically grounded in ubuntu. Ubuntu promotes communityhood and an admiration for the dignity of others. Community work and community development resonate with the African saying ndiri nekuti tiri (I am because we are). Ubuntu embraces the solidarity, justice and cohesion of the community and builds sustainable communities through teamwork and service to others, above all and valuing interdependency.
• The African developmental approach, credited to Professor Edwell Kaseke, School of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe is an important model in community work and community development. Kaseke (2001a) said social development seeks to ensure that individuals have access to resources necessary for meeting basic needs and in conditions that do not undermine their self-esteem. In Kaseke’s developmental work model, the roles of workers include creating opportunities for economic productivity (e.g. farming, irrigation, mining, fishing, off-farm income generating projects, self-employment and enterprises); lobbying and advocacy for social justice; mobilising local savings; improving people’s economic productivity skills; mobilising the rural communities to improve infrastructure such as roads, bridges, clinics and schools; assisting communities to develop development projects (proposals, plans, funding and feasibility) and ensuring that communities contribution is valued, pursued and recognized. This means that development is driven from the micro and macro levels, and from the economic and social perspectives.
• Other theories include ukama (African family theory), umuganda model, indigenization theory, decolonization theory, African assets theory and bottom-up theory.
Process of community work or community development
The process follows these stages:
1. Problem/Project Identifying/Auditing: This is a baseline survey into the community to identify all the pillars and needs. Identification is achieved by doing a community audit or survey. The audits and surveys are achieved through community needs assessment, community observation by the worker, using existing research data, focused group discussions, consultation or a combination of all these.
2. Planning: the plan explains the activities in detail, offering practical steps. It is consultative and the input of a variety of stakeholders in important. It must be based on community needs. The plan must be sustainable, measurable, achievable, results based and time-bound (SMART).
3. Implementing: Using the frame developed at planning, the implementation process follows these steps (i) initiate the project (ii) implement the project activities, (iii) monitor closely and evaluate stage by stage every step and outcomes of the projects (iv) identify areas to improve (v) initiate and renew project for improvement or prepare the community for closure and self-reliance/close the project and hand over implementation to the community.
4. Reviewing: do a final evaluation or review of the project or program and share lessons. Plan the next phase or the program using results of the review.
5. Sustaining: develop a plan about how the program will continue or end in a machobane (sustainable) way that leaves the community responsible for continued implementation
Africa social, economic, cultural and political background
Africa is a continent endowed with land for agriculture, mining, and water for fishing. The majority of Africa’s population live in rural communities and most of the people living in urban areas have a permanent rural home or connection. This makes it important for community workers and community development workers to plan from a non-elitist urban approach. The elitist approach has its roots in colonisation, where white people developed services for urban communities using western modernisation approaches founded on their culture and values. The elitist approach resulted in segregation, apartheid and creation of reserves where black people were forced into small pieces of unproductive land. Colonization took many forms – spiritual, religious, political, environmental, cultural, psychological, and educational.
Seventy five percent or more of African people with very low income, with most living in temporary but also permanent poverty. For income and livelihoods, the majority of Africans work on the land – farming, mining, fishing and doing other economic activities.
African culture is centred around the family, village and surrounding community. Families are much larger in size, they include the extended family, that is members of the clan or tribe. Africa has a rich cultural heritage of family life, dance, music, food, marriage, childcare, ubuntu, ujamaa and others. Africa’s spiritual heritage is also rich.
Politically and administratively, Africa has dual systems as a result of colonisation. The first is the indigenous system of governance. In Zimbabwe, they include Samusha (Village Head), Sadunhu (Sub-Chief), Ishe (Chief) and Mambo (King). Different systems and different names are used in other countries. The second is the western form of politics and governance, and in some countries, the Arabic form. The indigenous system works together with western systems of ward, sub-county, county or district, province and state. Western democracy, as a system of politics and governance, has produced mixed results. It has promoted stability and cohesion in some communities but it has also resulted in disharmony, violence, death and loss of sovereignty.
It is also important to state the role of the African Union (AU), and regional bodies for South, East, Central and West Africa. The AU and these bodies set policy directional at their levels and these policies influence state policies. Examples include the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption. Regional organizations include the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Due to colonisation, community development was developed based on western values but it failed to address the challenges of poverty facing the majority of Africans (Kaseke, 2001). This resulted in a call to decolonise the theory and practice of community work and community development. The strategies, theories, examples, explanations, case studies and definitions in this chapter are therefore rightly presented from a decolonial perspective.
Strategies and examples of community work and community development
1 Economic strategies
1 Nhimbe/Jakwara (Zimbabwe), Harambee (Kenya) or Ubudehe (Rwanda)
These are rotational work parties or community mutual assistance arranged at village or multi-village level. The community join hands to support the other for no economic reward. Rich farmers (hurudza) and poor community members have an opportunity to join hands and share. This is associated with wild joy and a lot of melodious singing, merry-making and rejoicing as people work, share good food, mostly traditionally brewed beer, small grain sadza or matoke and meat. Traditionally, this process invites surrounding village heads and their members to participate. Village heads are respectable people during community activity and food sharing is based on village participation. Nhimbe has several benefits including pulling labour together, helping would be needy villagers, transferring skills from hurudza to others especially the young, motivating others to work and promoting community cohesion through sharing and working together. In Rwanda, it is called ubudehe, meaning mutual assistance. It is done differently, depending on community culture, so it varies from country to country but also community to community. These strategies, if used effectively, increase production.
2 Japato (food for work)
Japato is a model of local participation in the building of local infrastructure such as repair of community roads, bridges and water points as a form of building local infrastructure and community development. The sponsors (government or non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) give the community work to do in their community in return for food, money or development resources. It is also considered as a model for social assistance to able bodied but desperate households who require assistance with food. Food for work programs are usually organised by government utilising government community development officers together with the support of social welfare officers whose role is to make the necessary assessments to determine which community benefits. also use this method. The local village heads take responsibility to list benefiting community members or households and take on supervision of the work progress including monitoring and evaluation to determine sustainability. If used effectively, food for work programs are economically viable for the sponsors and community.
3 Mukando/Stokvel (rotational savings)
This is a practice developed well across Africa and each country has its different forms of community savings and credit offerings. It is a very functional and successful social support system that has seen many families educating their children. The stokvel is a terminology used to describe rotational savings and practiced largely in South Africa. Mukando is a term applied in Zimbabwe where both men and women practice it. Men at work rotate their part salary with trusted friends (kutambirisana) where they agree to a figure of say $100 per month is given to the other party. This can involve a group of trusted friends of up to 10 people. In the villages, women do mukando to raise money for school fees, kitchen utencils or groceries. Mukando can be tied to an enterprise such as beer brewing or market trade, where after a day, week or month’s income, members give an agreed amount to one member. Another format is where one member would brew beer for sale, all the members are obliged to attend, pay their contribution of mukando. This kind of practice is called mutudu. Several fundraising activities would be arranged on the day including dancing competitions and selling of delicious food. The expenses one member accumulates are usually recorded and in their turn of mukando, the benefiting member would match the expenses to strengthen the saying that kandiro kanopfumba kunobva kamwe or kandiro enda kandiro dzoka, that is, one good turn deserves another.
4 Family crafts and artisanship
This is a type of community development that is wholly inbuilt within the community. Craft skills for artisanship are passed from grandmother to grand-daughter, grandfather to grandson, from father to son and from mother to daughter. The resources are natural and the skills are locally acquired through community internship and traditional apprenticeship arrangements. The skills transfer process can be vice-vesa, i.e. from father to daughter depending on the nature of skill. Crafts and craftsmanship skills have the potential to change the shape of the entire community through successful crafts sales and setting up community enterprises based on crafts. The Chimanimani Gudyanga community is endowed with large forests of baobab tree from which they harvest the bark (gavi) which is used to make a variety of crafts that are sold along the Mutare - Masvingo highway. There are several other examples of family crafts and artisanship passed from generation to generation.
5 Employment creation or employment services
To improve wellbeing of individuals, families and the community, generating sustainable employment opportunities at community level is a good option. This can be self or formal employment. This can be done by government or community-based organizations. Opportunities include putting people directly in employment or starting with internships. Another option is to promote and improve family crafts. There are several other options including career guidance services.
6 Income generating projects (mabhindauko)
This involves a group of people in a community coming together to implement an enterprise that can give them income. There are several types of income projects. Small income generating projects created at community level can grow into successful community enterprises that become sustainable and are driven by market demands hence grow through addressing community demands. They must be tapping the economic potential from the community, i.e. benefiting from locally available resources to sustain themselves. Community enterprises should have access to training programs and mentorship that will provide upgrades from technical skills (craft making) to business skills (entrepreneurship and financial literacy). These projects usually have 2-10 members.
7 Mushandirapamwe (cooperatives)
These are large income generation projects although mushandirapamwe can be done for social reasons. It involves more than 10 people putting their resources together to run a project. There are several projects to choose from including retail cooperative shops, housing cooperative, cooperative garden, cooperative college or school, cooperative mining or fishing or tourism or cooperative transport business. Shops. A savings or banking account can be opened. The popular bus company, Mushandirapamwe was a result of such a cooperative.
8 Development and improvements of markets
Finding markets and market improvement are a key strategy in growing community social enterprises as they struggle to become sustainable. Income generating projects when they reach the sustainability level, they need to be supported to venture into viable markets, value addition ventures.
9 Road construction or improvement
Roads are part of markets and marketing strategy. The improvement of roads in a community enables the easy movement of goods and services. Hence road construction is part of community development with the potential of raising the standards of infrastructure in the community and for community well-being.
10 Village industries, value addition and processing
This strategy is about developing the community’s capacity to process and add value to products from their communities. An example is Zvinoda Madzimai, a group of women that grows peanuts, then process it into peanut butter for sale. Others process honey into fine honey, maize into mealie meal and maputi, vegetables, timber, bark into dyes, harvesting and packaging local teas, minerals, fish, cotton into yarn, making juices, making beer, making wines, sunflower into oil, and fruits.
11 Investments and savings support
One economic strategy desirable for communities is investing and saving. Investment means using available resources to produce and generate additional resources. Savings means putting resources aside to support more production or as an insurance. Communities have several ways to invest and save, some these ways need to be strengthened. Others invest in livestock but diseases and drought are often challenging, so there is need for strategies to protect livestock as an investment. Others use banks, but there is inflation, and banks can close. Others invest in assets. Yet others invest in water sources to improve agriculture. Others invest in formal and informal education and training of their children or themselves. The role of development workers is to ensure that investments and savings are effective, and that they are protected.
12 Social welfare grants and cash transfers
This strategy of giving deserving people a monthly grant for a short or lengthy period of time has been used in many African countries. The grants come from the government or non-government sector. However, a key weakness of this grants has been their size, most too little to make any significant impact on the life of the people, their families and communities. Grants that are too small promote dependency. Grants that are linked to economic growth and development of recipients and their communities provide a stronger solution to poverty.
2 Educational strategies
1 Family and community education
In Africa, education takes place in the family and community although formal education takes place in schools. It is important to improve family and community education and not just formal education. Formal education in classrooms came later on by white people, before them people learned and were taught in families and communities. The education that is available in the family and community includes family and community learning to speak, learning to walk, physical education, history, civic education, political education, sexuality, marriage, work ethics, income skills, food preparation, crafts, music, storytelling, farming, mining, fishing, environmental care, child care and many others. Knowledge of stars and the sky (astronomy), knowledge of the mind (psychology), knowledge of society (sociology), knowledge of the animals (veterinary), knowledge of treatment and health (medicine and public health) and many others were taught in families and communities. As community development workers, it is important to strengthen these and find strategies to revise them if they were lost.
2 School construction or improvement
Education is a key social service and the improvement in the sector is a critical form of community development and a major component of community work. In some instances, whole new school structures are needed i.e. in new and over populated settlements. Education forms a key component of the social services in the community, hence school development committees (SDCs) play a significant role in the improvements of the education system. Community social workers take the responsibility to establish these social enterprises, social groups whose role is to drive social development in the community. The community is motivated to play a significant role in the construction of school structures, i.e. through individual household contribution to school construction. In other areas food-for-work parties have been seen to provide for labour in the school construction and contribute to one of the key social work core mandates of social development. But the other important aspect of educational improvement is its focus on the provision of the intellectual capacity that allows people to contribute in their life sustaining acts to achieve well-being. Another educational program is early childhood education. This is an important community development strategy that prepares children for education. It can be implemented through construction of early education centres, classrooms or providing resources needed and teachers, community and learners.
3 Child work
What is often considered child labour in western thought, is child work in Africa. It is a form of training which has socio-economic benefits. Child work is not a new thing, it happens even in developed countries. The important thing is to be able to regulate it and in Africa there are several ways to regulate child work. One strategy is to ensure that the work is fit for age, without hazards. The second is to ensure that children work with adults. The third is to ensure that length and amount of work is fit for age. The fourth point is to ensure that work is done for learning, and parents are always ready to advice, mentor and even re-do the work not done properly by children. The fifth strategy is to ensure that other forms of learning, such as classroom education do not get in the way of learning at home, but also that home learning does not get in the way of classroom learning. Schools often want to override home learning, and if not checked schools become spaces of unlearning. As children grow, their work load increases and they are given a responsibility to mentor and train others. Children who fail these roles of working and mentoring others are considered lazy, and they become a burden to the family, and their own families in future. No one child requires this kind of stigma.
4 National Youth Service
This strategy has been used successfully in Nigeria, Kenya, Seychelles and other countries. Zimbabwe’s attempt to use this strategy failed because it became a political program. Ideally, this service teaches young people African work ethics and promotes pride in one’s heritage and culture. Different strategies are used, ranging from learning history, training in paramilitary and security work and learning vocational skills through apprenticeships and national service. It is available after secondary school, after high school, after college or after university for periods ranging from 3 months, 6 months to one year.
5 Vocational skills training
Training young people in skills they can use to get income is important. This can be done as part of independent training but also in collaboration with colleges. Seeking internships or apprenticeships from companies or skilled individuals is another strategy. Useful skills include building and construction, farming, mining, fishing, horticulture, driving, carpentry, processing, retailing and many others.
6 Decolonisation and Africanism education
African countries suffer from the effects of colonisation. These effects include dependence, poor self-esteem, lack of innovation and lack of belief in one’s culture and ways of life. There are several ways to decolonise, and it is everyone’s responsibility to do so. One strategy for any community or institution is to come up with a decolonisation plan and follow it. The plan can cover areas like education and art but also removing colonial symbols and names. Teaching children to take pride in their families, communities and countries is an important way to achieve this.
3 Social strategies
1 Voluntary work parties
This is a model of community development where community leaders identify a community challenge and encourages community members to fix it on a voluntary basis. These may include a broken bridge, building a clinic, repair to a dip-tank, and usually those kinds of tasks undertaken by our urban municipal authorities. It carries the authority of the village head or the local chief, hence non-compliance would be seen as improper. Tasks are usually performed in rotational basis and as per village by village. These voluntary parties under the jurisdiction of the village head act as the traditional local
2 Zvipo (donations)
Zvipo are donations made to the community by community members or by people from outside. They can be given voluntarily or after a fundraising effort. They are usually in form of money, crops or livestock but can also be bricks, cement or other foods. The donations are used for welfare or development. The role of workers is to mobilise zvipo.
3 Borehole or water committees
These are committees formed to protect and maintain water sources. They ensure water is clean and equipment is not vandalised. In urban concentrated areas which water is often a challenge, there are borehole or water source sommittees to maintain order and to share water.
4 Girinka
The girinka concept is that one cow is given to a poor family by a neighbour. Usually, it is given a first-born calf. The intention being to ensure that everyone has cattle. This process cements and strengthens community connections and bonds (Kalinganire, Gilkey, and Haas, 2017). Similar projects have been done in Zimbabwe, for example the Heifer-Zimbabwe Project or the Presidential Heifer Project. In Zimbabwe, a donation or chipo of a heifer is given to one deserving family with the hope, understanding and agreement that the first calf dropped is to be given to their deserving neighbour. The project is intended to bring about social change and create cohesion between the participating communities. The heifer project in Zimbabwe has proved to be a success and just needs to be replicated at a large scale.
5 Umuganda (community day), ubunyarwanda and itorero ry’igihugu
Umuganda is a form of collective community development in East Africa, mainly Rwanda (Kalinganire, Gilkey, and Haas, 2017). In Kinyarwanda language, it means coming together in common purpose. Once every month, all of Rwanda engage in community work and development. It is a mandatory nationwide community day held every last Saturday of the month. This is a national project where businesses, workers, villagers, politicians and children take part in making the country a better place. The activities vary from repairing, planting, cleaning, building and many others. Other concepts from Rwanda include ubunyarwanda which means national pride in national citizenship, cooperation and cohesion and itorero ry’igihugu which means aiming to be good, live in peace and harmony, strong sense of cultural values.
6 Zunde raMambo
This is a granary managed by the Chief or Headman of an area. Before Zimbabwe’s last King was killed around 1868 it was the responsibility of the monarchy to ensure that there was a granary to store food to be given to the extremely poor or to be used during time of crisis. The monarchy’s Chiefs (ishe or mambo) and Sub-Chiefs (ishe or sadunhu) assisted in this regard. They were in turn supported by samusha, village heads. The zunde works like this: members of a community contribute labour (farming, mining, agriculture, fishing or other) and the proceeds are handed over to the Chief for custody in a granary (zunde). The matriarchy was usually responsible for storage but also contributed to distribution. For farming, each village head who constituted the Chief’s Court or Dare is mandated to allocate a piece of land equivalent to a hectare or less, where every villager participates in growing food. At harvest time the entire harvest would be stored into the zunde for future allocation to destitute households and children who needed support.
7 Support groups
These are made of about 10 members who are affected by a similar or related issue. As members, they design a strategy to address the issue they are facing. Such groups include disability groups, victims of violence groups, minority groups, parents’ groups, aged people groups and many others. The role of workers is to ensure such groups are formed and that they receive support.
8 Sharing child responsibility in the extended family
When children lose their parents permanently through death or through imprisonment, migration or incapacitation, the preferred strategy is ‘fostering’ within the family. Another strategy is to support the children while in their homes. Adoption of children by families who are not related to the child by blood, including families from other races, is not supported in Africa. Those from outside Africa who have been able to do it have used financial influence, deception and were supported by colonial laws. Institutionalization of children has been popular, driven by several factors but it is unAfrican and results from several disadvantages for children, families and the community. The preferred strategy is care within biological families and extended families.
9 Sharing child responsibility in the community
In African communities, child upbringing is a shared responsibility. The maxim that an African child is everyone’s child or it takes a village to raise a child, hence every child belonged to the village. This was figuratively translated in such a way that every respectable man or woman of the village had the authority to control and discipline an errand child in the village and still report to the biological parents without any questions raised. There are several ways of achieving this including rotational child care and identifying bad behaviour from any child in the community and deal with it or report it to parents. For community workers, the role is to ensure that every member of the community is able to not only raise their own but other’s children.
10 Family and community guidance and mentoring
In African communities, families and communities provide guidance and mentoring especially to young people, but also adults who are having social issues, such as domestic violence. There are people in families who have these roles, for example, tete (father’s sister) and sekuru (mother;’s brother). In the absence of tete and sekuru, roles are played by sisters and brothers as well as grandmothers and grandfathers. The role of workers is to ensure that families use these resources and to ensure that the whole community builds the capacity of its tete and sekuru. Their other important role is to provide culturally appropriate counselling, sexual education and marriage support.
11 Child protection committees
Protecting children requires everyone to be involved. Children are vulnerable to rape (by family members and non-family members), malnutrition, hazards and lack of education. It is the role of families and communities, including their courts to identify vulnerable children and address their vulnerability. But in other communities, especially farming, mining and urban communities, family and community are very weak, resulting in family and community roles of child protection not being played. In that case, child protection committees become important. These committees do not work in all communities, is used carelessly they cause more conflict than contribute to development.
12 Ceremonies and celebrations
Ceremonies play an important role in any family and community. They bring people together. They give people a sense of hope and purpose in life. There are several forms of ceremonies that workers can promote and support, these include birth ceremonies, child naming ceremonies, marriage gifts sharing ceremony (roora), marriage celebration (mapururudzo/mapemberero/ mhemberero), ceremonies to heal or support the sick, harvest ceremonies, rain ceremonies (mukwerera), death ceremonies, transition to adulthood ceremonies and many others. These ceremonies build result in stronger families, people’s resilience and oneness. Workers should encourage, promote and support them instead of suppressing, replacing and ignoring them.
13 Jenaguru, pfonda and related ceremonies
These ceremonies are usually done at night, so it is important to ensure security of children and young people. This means there is need for adult supervision to ensure that there is no violence, rape and use of drugs and alcohol. Jenaguru is a night play under the full moon, it involves one or several villages. It involves plays, games, singing, dancing and many forms of educational entertainment. Pfonda is done at night too, and involves same activities as jenaguru.
14 Community social responsibility
This is a situation where companies and institutions support community work and development. It is a voluntary service but a good corporate culture. For example, mining companies reinvest socially in the communities they do mining work or any other extraction work by supporting schools, roads and recreation. This improves the community form where they get land to mine and workers, but also improves the families of their workers and the workers themselves. They can donate funds or resources for the community to use, they can sponsor community events or provide the necessary services, for example, road construction. Roads are part of markets and marketing strategy.
15 Online groups and communities
Technology makes it possible now for people to communicate in groups or online communities. There are several technological applications that could be used, they keep changing and new ones keep coming in. These groups can be sued to connect families and communities. The downside is that they come at a cost, and users need a level of literacy to be able to use some of them. Some of the applications have inappropriate content. Until Africans contribute to production of these technologies, and creation of o line content, most of them will remain not suited to African communities.
4 Agricultural and environmental strategies
1 Chisi and Chief’s fines for environmental degradation
Chiefs and headman have an obligation to guide against environmental degradation. Besides environmental awareness, they also punish wrong doers. This ensures environmental sustainability. Lack of it has come back to haunt rural and urban communities. Every community had its sanctions and the village head and the chief both had the mandate to punish through fines or sanctions for those involved in environmental degradation and random cutting down of trees without local authority. In observing tradition and keeping up with local rituals and values every community, village heads observe a day of rest called chisi – a day to rest from any environmental and agricultural work in Zimbabwe and the chief and village head sanction anyone who does not observe the sanctity of the day.
2 Water harvesting
Water is a crucial commodity in a community. Water is life as many people say. Water drives community development and is a crucial strategy without which we have many poorer communities. Majority of rural communities rely on rainfed water for agriculture, hence for a whole six months rural communities are unproductive because of the absence of water. Community workers and community development workers can promote water harvesting for example constructing dams, sinking boreholes, wells, reservoirs or tanks.
3 Cattle rearing, fattening and abattoirs
Cattle is an animal of great importance as it provides a source of draught power, food, money, investment and social value. Cattle provide nutrition through milk and meat for communities but also manure for gardens and fields. Most importantly cattle are used in rituals. They provide food during funerals in the form of meat and it is a tradition that at every funeral of an elder person a beast has to be slaughtered. It is used in many other rituals, such as magadziro, known as memorial service one year after the death of an elder. At weddings cattle are slaughtered. Cattle is a symbol of wealth in the community and the well-to-do have many cattle and they can use them as source of income. However, rearing cattle involves a lot of effort. They need pastures, water and to be protected against diseases and marauding animals line hyenas and lions. Other strategies to increase survival of cattle include building dip tanks, planting grass, trees and water harvesting.
4 Cooperative farming
Zvinoda Madzimai in Zimbabwe is an example of a cooperative and agricultural committee established at the community to achieve desired common goals. Cooperatives and Agricultural Committees work at the village level and usually under guidance of agriculture extension worker and other development workers. Workers are often part of the team that scaffolds development-oriented committees through the provision and the drive towards social change, towards social development and the empowerment and liberation of the community to attain their well-being utilizing their own means. Other support service to cooperatives or any other growth-oriented community initiative has often come private companies providing community social responsibility programs. These may be mining companies operating in the local community and offer to support the community through some developmental donations. Other development organisations like ZOIC also procure funding from social investors to support cooperatives, agricultural committees or even educational committees to improve their well-being. This can be through the support i.e. providing agricultural commodities to enable Zvinoda Madzimai in their groundnut farm production. Development practitioners take a leading role in identifying these potential projects. They have the skills to interact with the committees and cooperatives to single out their needs and motivate them to come up with growth-oriented community improvement projects that can be supported. Support to committees and cooperatives can come in different ways and the community may come up with an integrated combination of community requirements related to agriculture, education hence community projects like Adult or early child learning, career guidance can be part of the community requirements.
5 Field days, prize giving days, shows or master farmer awards
Field days are a very important way of promoting agricultural productivity in communities. This is a day where farmers gather to see a selected field, and learn how the owner has managed it. It could also involve shows of crops from several farmers. Shows are organized at village or district level but also regional and national level. The Harare Agricultural Show is an example of a successful farmers show. Field days also include prices and awards. The master farmer award is usually given to a person who has progressed a lot in their farming.
6 Farming and agriculture demonstrator, brigades or guides
Demonstrators are often government workers who are trained to train both small and large farmers. They can be supported with training, transport and incentives. Brigades and guides are usually initiated by NGOs to support farmers. Brigades or guides are trained in farming. They use their skills in the same manner demonstrators do. Campaign for female Education (CAMFED) has trained and used young female guides to help improve agriculture.
7 Recycling
There is a lot of waste that is generated especially in urban communities. Strategies to promote recycling are many, and some of them generate income. Community workers and development workers need to be aware of more strategies, and they should link these to environmental management.
8 Machobane Farming System (MFS)
This is a system of farming developed by Dr James Jacob Machobane in Lesotho in the 1950s. It increases productivity by using organic manure, intercropping and rotating crops. Machobane promoted farming throughout the year to spread risk and increase production. The MFS addresses issues of declining soil fertility, small land size and climate variability. It is also known as Mantsa Tlala, or expeller of hunger. This was based on scientific research on Basotho farming practices done by Dr Machobane which showed that MFS was cheaper, sustainable and yields were 3 times more than conventional farming promoted by white people.
9 Madzoro (rotational livestock herding)
A whole community organise cattle heading (and also goats and sheep) in ways that allow community members free time to focus on their economic, household and other livelihood activities. A community of at least 10 households who are mutual friends organize madzoro between themselves. This is a way of allowing themselves an opportunity to organise their household work while the nine other households take the turn to herd cattle. This allows each household a total of 9 weeks before their turn comes. This a show of community cohesion and mutual support which is good for community work. It is also known as jana or jangano.
5 Psychological and spiritual strategies
Another role of community workers and community development workers is to support communities spiritually and psychologically. These include strategies to deal with fear, anxiety, mental health, loneliness, loss, hopelessness, exclusion and stigma. These can be caused by disasters, conflict, death, illness and unemployment. There are several ways of achieving this including promoting cultural events.
1 Death ceremonies
Death ceremonies provide comfort during time of grief. The death of a community member is not an individual family’s concern but one that the community show solidarity. Every household is represented and families bring food to assist the bereaved family. Members of the community take over the responsibility for the burial process and there is a lot of psycho-social support that happens during a funeral, including dancing, singing, speeches and drumming. In Chewa and Nyanja culture of Malawi, Nyau masked dancers entertain people and perform spiritually supportive rituals. In some communities, after a month the bereaved household prepare food to thank the community for their support and a death ceremony called manyaradzo, literally where it is intended to assist the family to get over the bereavement. After a year, another ceremony called magadziro is done to ensure that everything is ok with the family and to provide final support. Magadziro provides closure to the family and community because assets of the deceased are shared and the deceased is accepted as having joined fellow deceased beings in the spiritual world. These rituals vary from place to place but they are all meant to provide spiritual, social and psychological support. Other strategies that provide spiritual and psychological support include performances, rite of passage ceremonies for teen-agers.
2 Sports, recreation and entertainment strategies
Sports come in various forms, some are done for social benefits, some for physical benefits and some for economic benefits as a career. Strategies for community work and community development include providing sporting facilities, coaching services and sporting kits. It is important to select the kinds of sport people identify with, and accept culturally. Sports where people expose naked bodies are usually not preferable. The same applies to entertainment. In urban communities, recreational parks and spaces are a useful strategy. In Dakar, Senegal they have mass exercise parks or spaces for the public where exercise equipment is installed for free use.
3 Chema
Chema are contributions made by relatives, friends and community to support a deceased person’s family. These could be in form of money, food, transport and other resources to support during and after the funeral.
4 Pre-migration, in-migration and post-migration training, education and awareness
With many people in Africa migrating to other countries, including overseas to look for employment, it is important to teach people about the physical and psychological hazards involved. There are many, whether people have migrated formally as students or workers, as refugees or as so-called illegal migrants. The first challenge is that of being duped. People have lost money after being promised jobs in South Africa, overseas in America, Europe, China or Middle-East. The second challenge is of being smuggled, and sold to cartels of fake employment agencies. The third one is of unemployment and under employment. Others fail to find jobs but others find jobs they are over qualified for. Others get underpaid, or end up in risk jobs such as prostitution and thieving. The fourth challenge is that of being acculturated and assimilated into non-African cultures. This affect adults as well as children. As people step out of Africa, the pressure to change their values becomes more. This includes the pressure to marry into other races which has numerous psychological challenges for the couple and families, but more so for their future generations who will grow up divided between two races and cultures. Others say multiculturalism is good for the world, but there are more ideas against it. It perpetuates assimilation of smaller races into white culture, and causes more conflict in African families. The fifth challenge with migration is the potential for permanent migration which weakens African communities. African minds, the able-bodied and future generations get lost in Europe or America as diasporas, and by the same process their contribution to their musha, community, country and continent gets lost. It would be important for pre-migration training, education or awareness to address all these issues to help African communities before they migrate but also for those who have already migrated. Post-migration period is when people return to their country and homes, it helps them to settle and continue with their lives in their communities.
6 Legal, administrative, political and security strategies
1 Dare
Dare refers to a court. In rwanda they are known as Gakaka. In African communities, dare are organised from lower levels upwards. Dare are useful in communities because they resolve conflict, reinforce good behaviour, punish bad behaviour and make communities safe by dealing with violence and unfair behaviour. Dare is there to protect vulnerable members of society and reduce misuse of power. The first dare is called dare repamba, which means a family court. In this court, parents and all children and close relatives solve any misunderstanding that happens at the family level. It is often chaired by baba, mai or tete. This is followed by dare remhuri (also called dare remusha. This court is made up of members of the extended family or tribe. The third level is the village dare (dare remusha). Others call this dare ra sabhuku but the noun sabhuku is derogatory, it was used by colonialist to mean village secretary but the roles of samusha is more than just keeping a list of names. The fourth court is dare rashe or sadunhu. This is the local chief’s court. The fifth court is dare ramambo (chief’s court). The final court is dare ramambo wenyika (the King’s court). The King’s court in Zimbabwe was affected by colonization but there are communities working for its revival. These courts work with courts that came after colonisation: magistrate’s courts, labour courts, family courts and others. The indigenous courts should not be ignored, often community workers rush to work with the police and magistrate,s court.
2 Promoting political participation
Community work is political and politics is development with power. It involves influencing people to make informed choices. Community work and community development try to increase the political participation of communities. The political engagement empowers the worker and that of the communities they serve. It is also about convincing people to address issues relating self-help, building community infrastructure, hence maintain their own dignity, freedom and sustainability. Both urban and rural community work experts organize and influence national commemorations and political events, i.e, Zimbabwe celebrates Independence Day every year in April and all communities recognize that as a political event and day to remember and do something in remembrance. Therefore, across different countries, uhuru parties are celebrated jointly and in harmony. It is a time to recognize the work of government in service to their communities. There are also times when communities are demonstrating against certain actions of government, hence social action is a community political strategy to communicate their feelings to government. Community action involves mobilization of the community intended to send out a message to government. Usually this happens with repressive governments where there are no open channels for communication. Community workers and development workers engage in planned community organization and community action, to fulfill one of the core mandates of the profession. It involves appealing to the community to participate on a variety of issues such as voter education, leadership campaigns, fundraising, workshops on campaign strategies, communication and out-reach, and many other areas of political mobilization.
3 Formation and empowering associations
In Zimbabwe, residents’ associations, community associations, farmers associations, miners’ associations, fishers’ associations, workers associations, political parties, commuters’ associations and consumers associations are all examples of forms of political and community action. There is strength in numbers.
4 Neighborhood watch committee and community policing
These are local committees in villages, mining areas, farms or towns responsible for security surveillance and community policing. They usually work with national security but also private security companies. The people who are selected to provide the service are usually volunteers from the community but they can also be paid. National police usually provide basic training, equipment and support. When the neighbourhood teams work with police, this is called community policing. Other strategies of community policing involve forming youth clubs, children clubs, suggestion boxes and victim friendly units.
5 Vigilante groups
In some communties, crime reach unacceptable levels that people organise themselves to deal with thieves (tsotsi), burglars, cheaters and conman who use several strategies to steal, including force, firearms, rape, spraying with chemicals, beating or hitting, false messages and many other tricks. When this happens, and there is inadequate security from the police, people organize themselves to fight crime.
6 Development committees
In Zimbabwe, these are called Village Development Committee (VIDCOs) and Ward Development Committees (WADCOs) and are linked to local government. A ward is composed of several villages. Their role is to identify needs, plan development, implement plans and link with local government which in turn links them with national government. In Ethiopia they have farmers committees and residents’ committees.
7 Health, food and nutrition strategies
There are several strategies community workers and community development workers can use to promote health and nutrition. These include building health infrastructure, such as building clinics, health education, prevention, village health workers, village birth attendants, traditional healers, herbs, nutrition gardens, nutrition clubs and many others.
1 Community and village health workers and birth attendants
Community and village health workers (mbuya utano for women or sekuru utano for men) are part of the primary health care system. They play in important role of ensuring universal health access through health education, reporting, referrals and dispensing approved medicines. Community-based birthing is very common in rural and remote communities, where community trained village birth attendants, usually old grandmothers (mbuya nyamukuta) have managed that aspect of community health. They have been trained and are now a recognized service in the formal government led community health system. Majority of colonial rural clinics did not have sufficient accommodation for expectant mothers to stay at the clinic before birthing. This has resulted in the increase of deaths of both mothers and baby at child birth. These primary health workers need support with protective, communication, emergency equipment but also training in first aid. The facilities also need improvement, and this include their treatment rooms and accommodation. Incentives for them are another option since they spend significant amounts of time volunteering for the health system instead of working in their fields, gardens, markets or homes.
2 Nutrition and herbal gardens and clubs
These groups grow crops that enhances nutrition. They do this through home gardens in urban and rural areas, urban farms and cooperative gardens. They also grow plants like moringa that have herbal properties.
3 Traditional and religious healers and herbalists
They have knowledge of plants that are used to make medicines or can be used as medicines without processing. They also have knowledge of procedures like wound care, repairing broken bones, fertility, common colds and many others. In Zimbabwe they are regulated under the Traditional Healers Act, they have an office at the Ministry of Health and they have a council – Traditional Medical Practitioners Council. These healers are accessible to the community, and they are often consulted first before people go to clinics. They need to be supported, as they can influence health education and practices.
4 Chirambamuriwo (beef committees)
It involves members of the community putting their resources together to buy cattle, slaughter them and share the meat. This contributes to family food but also nutrition. It is also a way of marketing cattle where there are no buyers or where individuals are not able to buy a beast on their own.
5 Food relief (kutambirisa)
This is a common strategy used by government, non-government organizations and corporates. It involves sourcing food and delivering to communities in need. The food can include cereals, oil, grain, water and beans. There is a strong debate about what should be prioritized giving food, supporting agriculture or building water sources. What do you think?
6 First aid and occupational hazards training
Life is full of hazards at home, in the community, in farms, on roads, at school and in workplaces. Besides these hazards, there are also health conditions like asthma, heart attack, epilepsy and sugar diabetes that require people to have skills to manage them. It is therefore important for communities to have skills for first aid, lifesaving and risk management. When hazards occur, such as road accidents, mining accidents (e.g. makorokoza), workplace injuries, house fires, domestic violence, cyclones, suicide attempts and many others, those around should be able to reduce injury, harm, loss of life and loss of property.
7 Mental health awareness
There are lots of mental health (urwere hwepfungwa) issues in the community. If they are not resolved they result in depression or death. Some of these mental health issues kushishikana, kufunganya or kudzamirwa (stress), anxiety, kurwara nekufungisisa zvakadzama (depression), kusarudzwa kwakanyanya (stigma), kuona zvinhu (seeing things), kutya kwakanyanya (fear), kupenga (psychosis), kurashika pfungwa (schizophrenia), hasha dzakanyanya (too much aggression), pfungwa dzekuda kufa or kuzviuraya (death or suicide ideation), kupera pfungwa (dementia), kutamba nepwere (dementia), kudzungaira (too confused), makaro makuru (compulsive behaviour), kushaya unhu or zungairwa (personality disorder), kusagadzikana (hyperactivity), dununu (hypoactivity), makunakuna (incest), kuita bonde nemhuka (sex with animals, bestiality), unusual abnormal sexual behaviours or kudhakiswa (drug or alcohol abuse). The role of workers is mainly community public education to help people to prevent and manage these disorders. Knowledge about the biological nature of these conditions helps communities to understand them. In turn this help to reduce accusations of witchcraft.
8 Reproductive mentoring, education and awareness
Reproduction is an important component of African culture. It is highly valued. There are systems in place already for reproductive mentoring, education and awareness but some need to be supplemented because of several reasons, including the disintegration of families and communities. Issues to deal with include fertility, which when not available or dealt with properly, results in violence or divorce. Another issue is sex before marriage, which causes a lot of disharmony in families and communities. Another issue is abortion, which usually results from sex before marriage. Yet another issue is HIV and AIDS which interferes with reproduction and can be passed to the foetus and the new born. How can workers achieve deal with these issues? They need to ensure that available systems are functional, if not, they do community awareness or promote school-based programs to target young people.
9 Sanitation improvement
There are several methods that have been used to improve sanitation in both urban and rural communities. Sanitation awareness is one of them. Another is to promote, support and construct public and home toilets.
8 Less useful and inappropriate strategies
It is also important to share with readers strategies that are less useful, harmful and inappropriate in the African context. Most of these strategies are built on western culture, cause more conflict, mistrust and violence in families and communities instead of solving it.
1. Scouts, girl guides and brigades and church related camps and activities that dwell much on non-African values and culture
2. Places where alcohol, sex and western-themed movies or films are accessible
3. Donation of books from western countries. Most of the books are irrelevant and still carry colonial themes
4. Donation of used or low quality (zhing zhong) or inappropriate clothes, toys (e.g. white dolls), food, art and technology. Other communities only eat remba, kosher, halaal or vegetarian foods, especially meat. These are cultural values that should be respected
5. Use of community workers from outside the country, especially white. Avoid using community workers who do not understand the community’s language, culture and values
6. Activities that expose people’s naked bodies, involve touching or altering people’s bodies and decorating bodies. These include tattooing, skin lightening and some hair styles like long or plaited or dreaded hair for men. Generally, hair is to be kept short and clean.
7. Activities related to or promoting gays, lesbians, homosexual, same sex marriage and bisexuals. The practice is culturally unacceptable in Africa, and illegal in countries like Zimbabwe
8. Adoption of children by families who are not related to the child by blood, including families from other races, is not supported in Africa. Those from outside Africa who have been able to do it have used financial influence, deception and were supported by colonial laws. The preferred strategy is ‘fostering’ within the family. Another strategy is to support the children while I their homes.
9. Programs that do not adequately consider the needs of less powerful groups in communities such as women and children are likely not to increase disadvantage of these groups.
10. Institutionalization of children has been popular, driven by several factors but it is unAfrican and results from several disadvantages for children, families and the community. The preferred strategy is care within biological families and extended families.
11. Western concepts and practices of human rights, majority age, child labour, spirituality, land, health, dating, sexuality, democracy, gender, home and family. African families are large compared to western families, and polygamy is acceptable in many communities. The African permanent home is musha, the one in the rural village, the one in towns is temporary and can be disposed anytime. When people visit musha often, it’s not being careless with money, it is part of why they work.
12. Strategies that encourage more political or tribal polarisation. However, workers need to be mindful of community differences and their impact on their work and development
13. Dangerous or hazardous games like boxing
14. Child adoption is inappropriate in African cultures. The musha approach supports children to grow up in their homes or in homes of their blood relations
15. Ignoring the presence or roles of leaders, aged and gatekeepers should not be ignored, these include samusha, sadunhu, Ishe, war veterans, politicians and spiritual leaders
16. Activities that are seen to promote laziness and dependence
17. Do not use Black American culture and urban African new-cultures as representative of African culture. There are differences. What people usually see in the media is not really African culture but media representation of it.
18. Social welfare or social assistance grants that do not have an economic or developmental incentive have several disadvantages.
19. Prisoning young children in conflict with communities and the law has several disadvantages. There are several methods to divert them from the prison system.
20. Performances or works of art, music, dance, language and writing that demonise Africans or promote non-African values, thinking and practices.
Models of community work or community development
1 Sanga Development Foundation (SDF) multi-stakeholder community development model
The SDF model is a very useful tool that helps to understand the pillars of community work and community development. The model has 7 pillars that contribute to development of the Sanga community as shown in Figure 1. More information about SDF is provided in the case studies section.
Figure 1: SDF multi-stakeholder community development model
This SDF model puts the community (Sanga) at the centre of development. The community is the stokeholder, the main pillar of development.
2 Zvinoda Madzimai community social enterprise model
This model puts the concept of culture and community participation at the center of community development and is summarized in thematic terms (ZOIC 2009). The themes are:
Theme 1: Culture is central to successful entrepreneurship designs
Theme 2: Social networks are the glue that holds society and entrepreneurs together
Theme 3: Social capital is the human factor and anchor of rural business success
Theme 4: Creative thinking as the ART for building successful enterprises
Theme 5: Building on innovation and creativity to sustain rural entrepreneurship
Theme 6: Information communication technology (ICT) as an entrepreneurial mover
Theme 7: Meeting and mating of ideas and cultures causes entrepreneurial progress
From the two models, the pillars of community work and community development are:
1. Community
2. Culture
3. Innovative work or development plans
4. Planners
5. Community leaders
6. Assets, Infrastructure & Money
7. Members working or living outside the community, in towns or diaspora
8. Government
9. Non-government agencies
10. Children, Youths & other interest groups
11. Development workers & volunteers
12. Social capital and social networks
These pillars are discussed in the next section.
Pillars of community work or community development
1 The community
The community is a collection of households in a specific geographical area. They are the people experiencing problems, challenges, threats or issues and they have development needs or aspirations. There are several types of communities, including but not limited to:
1. Village
2. Suburb
3. Town
4. Group of villages
5. Farm community
6. Mine community
7. Fishery community
8. Refugee camp
9. Shanty town
10. Social media groups
A community has opportunities and strengths, such as willingness to change situations (self-drive), land, water, minerals and vegetation, community knowledge and labour and community cohesion. But a community also has problems, challenges, threats or issues, including:
1. Lack of adequate social services like water, health, security, food, roads, communication, transport, education, agriculture, markets and many others
2. Lack of social and economic development
3. Poverty
4. Human abuse rights issues
5. Lack of participation in national development processes (marginalization)
6. Lack of work and self-development plan
7. Unemployment and lack of income
8. Lack of cohesion (conflict with family or community)
9. Degradation of natural resources (climate change)
10. Lack of support from local and national government (marginalization)
These problems, challenges, threats or issues can be classified as economic, social, psychological, political, environmental and spiritual.
The community can form a Community Association (CA). A CA has a written constitution (can also be unwritten), leaders and a plan. A residents’ association or villagers association is an example. In other communities, a community centre is provided by the local authority or by government. The centre should have at least an office and a meeting room. Others use the residence of their leader as a community centre.
In other communities, you find members who are working outside the community. These include those working in schools, police stations and other work stations outside their community. These are usually members of the civil service. Then there are others working in growth points, towns, farms and mines. Others work in nearby countries and in Africa as a while others work outside the continent, usually termed overseas or diaspora. While these people do not regularly stay in the community, they have land and homes and they aspire for the development of their community. Most are willing to contribute their knowledge, experience and remit back home.
2 Community leaders
Leaders are part of the community. The leaders include village heads, area chairpersons, elected officials or Chiefs. The leaders are expected to drive the process of work or development in their area. However, at times this does not happen because they lack knowledge, skills, resources to do so. To address this challenge, the leaders can be trained and this role falls on community workers and other development welfare workforce. Another solution is to train volunteers who will work with them. In most cases, the government or non-government agencies provide the necessary workforce.
3 Local and national government
Local and national governments play an important role in community work and community development. The local government includes the elected leader of the ward or county and the district, municipality or country authority. The national government includes the elected Member of Parliament, government officials from health, social services, agriculture, women, youths, education and others. The roles of National and local Government are that national government takes responsibility for national budgets for which local government receives its own share of budget. Lately the Zimbabwe constitution of 2013 offers room for devolution, a situation where local authorities have some level of autonomy regards financial planning and budgeting.
4 Community planners
Without planners, community work and community development will not easily take off. The duty of the planners is to collect ideas from community and stakeholders and put those ideas into a plan. This is a written document agreed by the community. Planners can be leaders, workers, community members, volunteers or organisations. Communities have their own traditional planning structures, that organise the social, economic and political plans. In Zimbabwe, these are called Village Development Committee (VIDCOs) and Ward Development Committees (WADCOs) and are linked to the formal and political structures of the district.
5 Community workers, community development workers and volunteers
Workers are employees of government or non-government agencies who are trained, qualified and experienced. They may hold a certificate, diploma or degree in community work, social work or development studies. Workers in community work or community development work as one or more of the following professionals: Community Worker, Community dDvelopment Worker, Community Social Worker, Community Organizer, Community Developer, Community Youth Worker, Community Researcher, Project Officer/Coordinator, Community Mobiliser, Gender Officer, Disability Worker, Aged Support Worker or Community Child Care/Development Worker. Volunteers may be from the community or outside, and they provide their time and energy and at times resources to drive work and development. Some responsibilities or duties of workers and volunteers include:
1. Identification of community needs and those in need
2. Linking community needs with government programs
3. Community advocacy and planning to improve community well-being
4. Resource mobilization and refer clients to community resources
5. Building community capacity and strengthen community organizations
6. Creating community groups of purpose and social enterprises
7. Stakeholder identification and participation
8. Ensuring community ethics, values, culture and beliefs are respected
9. Decolonising community work and development
10. Advocate for local government, national government and non-government support
Workers and volunteers require several skills, knowledge and competency, including, but not limited to:
1. Knowledge of local protocol, culture, values, beliefs and practices
2. Communication skills including speaking in local language
3. Community awareness skills
4. Leadership skills
5. Networking skills
6. Fundraising and resource mobilisation skills
7. Needs analysis skills
8. Skills to refer to services and service providers
9. Planning skills
10. Cultural skills
11. Employment or income creation skills
6 Children, youths, women and other interest groups
Children and young people represent the future of the community. They should be included in the process of community work and community development. When planning and organizing, it is important to know that children and young people enjoy play, art, short meetings and short documents. They want to be appreciated and to be entertained. They can be easily bored so when planning, community workers must plan with their needs in mind. Other interest groups include women, people with disability, aged, cultural and minority groups and community organization must be able to mobilize each of these groups and develop programs that are unique to each of them. Zvinoda Madzimai (meaning what women wants) group in Gutu is an example of the women’s group that has been successful in meeting the needs of. Comprehensive community development must embrace the needs of different groups.
1 Non-government organizations (NGOs)
NGOs are part of the community interest groups. They include private voluntary organizations, foundations and trusts. They can be local, national, regional and international. Some are self-funded, others are funded by donors, businesses or governments. They social and development investors, relief organizations, churches and other agencies that aid in cash or kind. They an important stakeholder who bring in resources, experience and knowledge to the community. However, they usually have their own covert interests socially, politically and otherwise. Others want to convert people to enlarge their organizations or churches, and to ensure the dominance of their beliefs. Others want to change local culture in the name of ‘modernisation’. Others use strategies that result in more harm, conflict and disharmony in communities. Others are fly by nights, they just come to do short term projects and disappear.
7 The plan
An important pillar is the plan. This is made by all the community, stakeholders, leaders, volunteers and workers. It is the guide upon which the programs are implemented. Further it provides the broad road-map for interested social and economic investors. The process of developing a plan should be developed with the support of the community leaders, while it is driven and led by the community-based organization or the community workers. The work plan or development plan contains the following:
1. Introduction and institutional background
- A description of the institutional/organisational, background and context
2. Description of the community
- this must include the land, the people, the natural and human resources available to steer the program,
- the district, province, up to the village, vital statistics, includes the number of households, total population, number of villages and natural resources, the political situation and leadership structures.
3. Environmental analysis/issues/challenges
- an analysis of identified list of problems, potential programs, the community economic and social drivers, challenges,
- analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT analysis)
4. Strategy to deal with challenges
- strategic pillars of the organization – the strong legs/pillars of the organization
- priority list of programs or projects identified or to be created to solve the problems, challenges, threat sor issues
- list of potential solutions, projects or programs
- analysis of solutions that have been used before to support the strategy
- stakeholder mapping and their roles, identification of potential support resources required
- identification of existing resources
- identification of more social investors and stakeholder description for more resources to support the strategy
5. Logical frame (log frame) and implementation plan and structure
- a schedule or time plan that details out the project time frame
- list of objectives, activities to achieve them and expected results
- a description of how the community, leaders and stakeholders are involved in the listing the problems, challenges, threats or issues and mostly in the implementation structure
- profile and names of project leaders, volunteers and professional workers and their roles in supporting the project
- listing and mapping of stakeholder’s roles and contributions to the project both financially and strategy
6. Budget and resources needed for the project
8 Social capital and social networks
Social capital and social networks play an important role in community work and community development. Social capital refers to the social resources that a community has, for example, cohesion. Social networks are a form of social capital on their own, and these include the friendships a community has with nearby communities and other stakeholders. The connections a family or community have increase their sources of funding, support, markets and influence. Examples of social capital include ubuntu that increases justice and familyhood, ujamaa that increases labour, umuganda that increases communityhood and machobane which increases sustainability.
Templates to use in community work or community development
1 Template 1: Community audit template
|Item |Response |
|Name of community | |
|Description of community | |
|Community needs that were identified (current situation or problems). It is important to use numbers | |
|here but you can also describe. | |
|Describe the current plan | |
|How long will be the next plan and when does its start and end? | |
|What is the plan for fundraising and stakeholder mapping? | |
|What financial resources and assets are needed for each activity and are available? | |
|What human resources are available for community work or community development? What are the economic | |
|and social drivers in the community? | |
|What are the likely challenges and opportunities? | |
2 Template 2: Template to identify community needs and projects
The 6-stage process of identifying community needs or projects is as follows:
1. Problem or needs triggering – there is something that triggers a community, organisation, government or worker to realize that there is a need and a project is required. In community work, the triggers are usually sudden and un-anticipated but in community development the triggers are usually anticipated. Triggers could be droughts, accidents, cyclones, deaths, hazards and many others.
2. Community mobilization and sensitization – this involves concept and issue discussion and problematization of issues which could be in the form of theoretical paper presentations, community discussions, consultations or listening to stories.
3. Problem or needs clarification – this could be in the form of short community dialogue sessions, community group discussions, group and individual verifications of the problem issues
4. Project selection – the community with stakeholders will create a list of potential projects then select a project that can effectively address the current need
5. Project piloting and verification – this could be in the form of short project to test feasibility, methods and participation. The tester or pilot project is implemented with close monitoring and documentation. At times there is no need to pilot
6. Approval and replication of the piloted project to address the identified needs
3 Template 3: Intervention or implementation plan
|Item |Response |
|Name of community | |
|Leader’s title and name | |
|Description of community & its economic and social drivers? | |
|Community needs | |
|Names of planners, workers and volunteers | |
|To address the needs, what will be done (what is the strategy & the activities)? | |
|Who will do what? stakeholder plan & program/project management structure | |
|When will each activity start and finish? (timeline or schedule or log frame) | |
|Does the community have current or expired development plans? | |
|Assets, infrastructure & money/resources available | |
|Members working or living outside the community, in towns or diaspora | |
|What are possible intervention methods? Which ones have been selected by the community? | |
|Government, non-government agencies in the area? | |
|Children, youths & other interest groups – an analysis | |
|What needs have been identified for this community? How was each need identified? Participation must | |
|be very strong and community aspirations and community buy-in must be respected and solicitated. | |
|What needs are short-term (urgent or immediate), medium-term or long-term? | |
|What are the likely challenges and opportunities? (SWOT analysis for strength-weaknesses-opportunities| |
|and threats) | |
|Sustainability Plan - what happens when the end of the project is reached? Do you exit, renew or what?| |
|Is this sustainable? Outline a Sustainability Plan. | |
|How will be activities be monitored, evaluated and how will the project be reviewed? | |
4 Template 4: Evaluation or review template
|Item |Response |
|Name of community project, activity or program | |
|Name of person or agency or committee doing the review or evaluation | |
|Description of how information for the review or evaluation was collected | |
|Situation before the project or activity was implemented (the baseline) | |
|What has changed or not changed? | |
|What to positive changes? | |
|What limited or affected success? | |
|Assess the planning and plan | |
|Assess the implementation | |
|Assess the monitoring and continuous evaluation | |
|Was sustainability ensured? | |
|Assess participation | |
|What could be done next time (recommendations)? | |
|What could we do differently/in another way | |
|What are the likely challenges and opportunities? | |
5 Template 5: Stages to follow when meeting traditional leaders
1. Identification – identify the leader or leaders of the community you want to work with
2. Intermediary – find an Elder to act as an intermediary if you are not known to the area. Ask them to explain local customs and protocols including payment of a court gift (mari yedare)
3. Introductions – it is recommended to be introduced through an intermediary
4. Court gift – the gifts vary from place to place and could be cash or livestock
5. Meeting the leader – in other cases, you will be asked to present your issue through one or more representatives of the leader even if he or she is there
Local customs and protocols may include greetings, gifts, clapping hands, removing hats, removing shoes, kneeling, no revealing clothes for both men and women, accepting food or drink, head cover for women, no cameras or other technologies, sitting on the floor, not writing or note taking, not arguing, addressing the leader by their title or clan name and many others.
Case studies
1 Case study 1: Initiating a community development project in Ethiopia
My name is Kassa. I am a social worker in Tigray region of Ethiopia. I have worked as a caseworker and groupworker for 6 years in an urban community. As a caseworker, my work involved assessing the needs of individual clients who visited the office of the non-government agency Kassa worked for. At times, there were about 8-12 clients from one community, and Kassa usually formed a group to work with them as a team. Both casework and groupwork were not well received by the clients, they were not sure of the benefits, what they wanted was help as quickly as possible. The agency had clear outlines and strict rules of the casework and groupwork strategies I could use. To Kassa the methods were out of touch with the clients, for example, Kassa could not easily include their families in the client’s plan. After 6 years I decided to leave this agency as it had become more controlled by its managers who were trained in Britain and had little respect for methods relevant and acceptable in the Tigray communities. It did not take long to find a job but there was a problem because I got a community work job. Since I graduated, I had never practiced community work. The government agency I worked for was starting a community program to get communities more involved and socio-economic development. There was not much time to prepare as my first assignment was in two weeks’ time, in a rural community. The community was made up of about 6 farmers associations. After thinking about this, I spoke with my boss at the government department and he told me the first thing was to know what had already been done in the community which I did only to find out there wasn’t much community work and development. When I told my boss, he said then it is important to approach the leaders. We did that in my second week at work but I was not even the leader of the team that visited the community because of protocol and government and in the community. My boss said protocol was very important otherwise the community would not accept the worker and the community development project. We were received warmly but they were interested in what the government would bring. We could not make any commitments even though some of my colleagues wanted to. When we left, it was clear that they were not sure why we wanted to do but they had agreed to a meeting of all leaders in the next two years.
2 Case study 2: Sanga community in Zimbabwe
Sanga community is made up of four villages (misha) (Mugumbate, 2019). Sanga is within the traditional jurisdiction of Headman (Sadunhu) Mabvuregudo and Chief (Ishe) Nyashanu of the Shava tribe in Buhera District in Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe. Demographically it has an estimated 300 households but the population distribution is not known. The community has one incomplete but operational primary school, a large cattle and retail market (monthly), grocery shops, a lowly staffed police station, a community centre, a community association (Sanga Development Foundation, SDF), and two small roads but there are several socio-economic challenges including long distance to secondary school long distance to health centre and hospital, long distance to main road, inadequate and infertile land, a broken dam, no dip tank, environmental degradation, low agricultural income, HIV and AIDS and droughts. There are also cases of domestic violence that are usually solve using family and community interventions but the police are sometimes involved. The local Shona culture promotes community cohesion but this cohesion is being reduced by emergence of different competing foreign religions. Food relief from government and non-government agencies has been chronic. There have been mixed feelings about this. Many young and able-bodied people are outside the community, in towns and other countries, and although these people have permanent homes in Sanga, and contribute remittances to their families, this form of temporary migration threatens the future of the community. Sanga was an area for hunting with very few families living in it around before whites invaded the area in search of gold in the 1890s. Most families who live in Sanga today used to live and farm in the middle part of Zimbabwe (areas around Midlands and Chivhu) where there was enough rainfall and good soils but were forcibly pushed by white colonist settlers to Gutu, Njanja and later Uhera. But the whites did not give back Sanga Estate, which they had occupied in the 1890s. They later opened Sanga Farm for black people to use again in the 1950s. The whites probably left Sanga Estate because of low rainfall, poor soils, high temperatures and failure to find gold. Since Zimbabwe gained independence from white colonial rule in 1980, the people of Sanga in Buhera have embarked on several projects to improve their food sources, welfare, income and to develop their community. Most of these projects are agriculture based but also include retailing, services and manufacturing. This research was carried out between August and September 2020. The purpose was to document projects that were carried out between 1980 and 2020. Why is it necessary to research these projects? First, these projects have not been documented, meaning that, current and future generations have limited access to how these projects were run. By documenting these projects, the community will be provided with a source of information to use to understand food production, welfare, income and development. The research came up with two methods of classifying the projects. The research identified 20 projects that were categorized into IFVCN, that is Individual development projects; Family development projects; Village development projects; Community development projects and National projects as shown in figure 5 (Mugumbate and Daka, 2020).
Figure 2: Projects classified by level (IFVCON)
[pic]
The projects were also divided into IMPRESS as follows:
• Income and cash crops projects – water melons, tomatoes, vegetables and cotton
• Manufacturing projects – weaving, pottery, molding, welding and carpentry
• Processing projects – brewing/beer making, peanut butter making, oil extraction, bakery and grinding
• Rearing of livestock projects – poultry, goats, cattle and rabbits
• Environmental, conservation and water projects – dams, wells, gully covering and planation
• Sales and retail projects – tuckshop and cosmetology
• Services projects – school construction, market and road making (Mugumbate and Daka, 2020)
Fig 3: Projects classified by type of activity
[pic]
Unlike other communities, Sanga does not have mining projects, tourism, fishing and honey projects.
3 Case study 3: Zvinoda Madzimai Peanut Butter Making Project
The project seeks to advance community entrepreneurship through processing and value addition. It is an example of a community growth-oriented project or cooperative. The project is run by the Zimbabwe Opportunities Industrialization Centers (ZOIC) as community projects in Bikita and Gutu involving village women cooperatives. Zvinoda Madzimai was started by a group of 25 village women from Chirimubgwe village (musha) and Manyanye village under Headman (sadunhu) Nerupiri and Chief (Ishe) Gutu. They both benefitted from a donation of $85 from their local Member of Parliament way back in 1988. The group of 25 women traded or loaned the money between themselves in the form of a community micro-lending scheme that targeted the community mainly government employees, and largely teachers through a money lending scheme. Members would borrow and pay back with a 10% interest per month. The cash transactions became complicated as the group traded more money and this resulted in a split. Groups are always prone to internal dysfunction hence the need for intervention. Some Zvinoda Madzimai group members viewed the practice of loaning cash as complicated and demanded that their shares be reimbursed. The group cohesion, syntality and common vision was lacking hence the imminent split as group. The members came together to disburse the proceeds and the original group collapsed. A minority group of 10 re-converged and continued as Zvinoda Madzimai. They ventured into buying grocery items and retail of items largely those commonly utilized by women in their households, such as cooking oil, bath and washing soap and other items most preferred by the household. Hence the name Zinoda Madzimai.
When a social worker met the Zvinoda Madzimai group, a new process of problem and project identification was initiated by the social worker. Having listened to their story and understanding where and how the group started, more sessions for group cohesion and group leadership skills were taken in order to strengthen the vision and mission re-building. Ideas to venture into other community projects were incorporated and the group grew to venture as an agricultural cooperative and chose groundnut farming involving 150 village women and men farmers. The community had an estimated population of 350 households. The community has 10 schools, seven primary schools and 3 high schools up to advanced high school level. Two gravel roads link the community with Masvingo town only 40 km away.
Working through a ZOIC social worker the group received funding for their groundnut farming project and value addition from WK Kellogg Foundation of the USA. The same project was replicated in Bikita with a group known as Tagona Peanut Butter Processing all focused on identifying community based, but growth-oriented initiatives with potential for growth.
Zvinoda Madzimai is an example of a successful community-based development program, with potential to grow and whose focus is long term sustainability of individual farmers, households and the community at large. The benefits have accrued to everyone in the system of the community structure. Young post ordinary level (secondary school) graduates have found jobs at the new milling factories established at the village level. The ten (10) group members have become the owners of a very successful village industry which became registered as a Private Limited Company.
Value addition and peanut butter processing was their brand as a growth-oriented community initiative. Social workers play a significant role in the transformation of growth oriented and potential village industrialization through encouraging formation of social enterprises such as Zvinoda Madzimai that are both sustainable and market driven to ensure they meet community needs and are based on fiscal responsibility. The Zvinoda Madzimai and other W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded projects were community-based experiments designed to test viability and replicability of community growth-oriented initiatives, hence focus on rural industrialization through technological advancement and value addition.
Fig 4: A farmer exhibits groundnut harvest in 2005
[pic]
Questions for case study 1, 2 and 3
1. What protocols are observed in your own country or community?
2. What do you think happened in the second meeting in case study 1?
3. What are the shortcomings of casework and how does it differ from community work?
4. What have we learned from Kassa’s account?
5. How do you think Kassa did to understand community needs? What do you think the needs were?
6. Create a chart that shows a stakeholder map of a community of your choice (name of community and the stakeholders likely to be included in a development program).
7. Write a history and profile of your own community?
8. What do you think are the local protocols in Sanga community?
9. Identify the leaders and planners in Sanga community?
10. Looking at Sanga, what are its strengths and opportunities?
11. What could be sources of knowledge about this community? Discuss these. Think of research, leaders, agencies, community members, your own knowledge as a professional, historical documents and many others)
12. Create a chart that shows a stakeholder map of this community.
13. Appraise the two classifications of projects in Sanga
Summary
• In this chapter we valued indigenous African knowledges, theories, practices, examples and ideas that have been sidelined in favour of western or urban ideas.
• Communities have potential to solve their problems, challenges, threats or issues. However, this usually does not happen because they have immediate challenges to deal with, others lack resources, mobilisation skills, knowledge, resilience and experience required to plan, initiate and implement programs and to sustain them.
• Both community work and community development are interventions that seek to address problems, challenges, threats or issues at community level
• The theoretical foundations of African community work and community development are ujamaa, ubuntu and developmental approach.
• Culture and innovation are central to successful community entrepreneurship and successful community ventures
• Improved relationships, group cohesion, group syntality, social capital and improved social networks are the glue and anchor that holds society together
• Objectives, guiding principles and ethics are vital components in community work and community development
• There are different strategies of community work and community development in Africa addressing economic, social, psychological, political, environmental and spiritual objectives of communities. In this book we provided over 60 examples but also over 20 strategies that are harmful or less useful
• The community is at the center and is an integral part of community work and community development
• The pillars of community work and community development include work plans, development plans; planners; community leaders; assets, infrastructure & money, members working or living outside the community, in towns or diaspora; government, non-government agencies; children, youths & other interest groups; and development workers & volunteers
• Process of community work or community development is: identification of pillars; planning; implementing; reviewing and sustaining.
• Use of local resources, coupled with participation, use of technology and innovation result in successful community working and development.
Further and advanced knowledge
This chapter introduced community work and community development. To improve theoretical knowledge and practical skills, more training and practice is required. Such training includes: fieldwork in a community work agency; process of community work and community development; needs assessment/project identification; researching with communities; decolonizing communities, project planning and management; developmental work and socio-economic development.
Questions for in class assessments and examinations
1. What are the three African theories or theoretical foundations underpinning community work and community development? Discuss any two.
2. How is community work different from casework or individual work and groupwork?
3. How does community development contribute to developmental social work and social development?
4. Use the needs analysis template to understand needs of a selected community.
5. Do a community work and community development audit of a selected community. Identify community needs that require community intervention. Use the relevant template.
6. Identify the pillars of community work and community development of a specific community of your choice.
7. Identify appropriate intervention methods for a selected community of your choice.
8. Develop an intervention or implementation plan for a selected community of your choice.
9. Discuss, step by step, how you could plan, implement, review and end a program in a rural community?
10. Review or evaluate a community development program that has been implemented in your community.
11. Use 10 slides to create a lecture about sustainability of community work and community development projects to be delivered to volunteers.
12. Use 10 slides to demonstrate the full cycle and stages of community problem/project identification
13. Create an audio speech to be delivered to local community leaders about different methods of community work and community development. Remember the importance of local protocol and language.
14. Use 10 slides to demonstrate to the project leaders, local community leaders and project volunteers on leadership skills and group cohesion
15. Discuss any 2 indigenous laws or rules from traditional leaders, 2 national laws or policies from a government, 2 regional policies from a regional body and 2 continental policies from the African Union that contribute to community development.
16. See case studies for more questions
Potential questions for research
1. What is the most effective model of assessing community needs?
2. What are the strategies to enhance and sustain community development projects?
3. What are the indigenous methods appropriate for the community?
4. A bottom-up approach to developing African community work and development theory
5. Analysing the African cultural leadership and management approaches
6. How to enhance ujamaa and ubuntu approaches to community development?
7. Development of community work and development models?
8. Comparative analysis of the western and African cultural leadership skills
9. Improving or increasing participation of marginalized groups
10. Evaluate the process of community work or community development
11. Impediments and opportunities to sustaining development
12. Research could also focus on livelihood strategies, income, markets, peace, governance and natural resources (land, water, air, fisheries, oceans, minerals, vegetation and others).
13. Management and nurturing growth-oriented community social enterprises
Glossary
Community development: a method of intervention that prevents and addresses long-term problems, challenges, threats or issues and utilises community assets, opportunities and participation. Community development focuses on long-term well-being and addresses long-term needs, it is often preventive, empowers and builds capacity. Community development cannot be done on behalf of the community.
Community work: a method of intervention that addresses immediate, short and medium-term problems, challenges, threats or issues and utilises community assets, opportunities and participation. The assets can be human, family, environmental, spiritual or otherwise and can also come from outside. Community work focuses on short-term welfare and addresses immediate needs, it is often reactive. Community work can be done on behalf of the community.
Community: a collection of households in a specific geographical area.
Developed community: a community that has all the tangible and non-tangible goods, infrastructure and services required to satisfy their short- and long-term needs.
Development: a process of ensuring that a community has all the tangible and non-tangible goods, infrastructure and services required to satisfy their short- to long-term needs. A developed community has all the tangible and non-tangible goods, infrastructure, human expertise and community services required to satisfy their short- to long-term needs.
Developmental approach: a process of development that prevents and looks at needs in the long term as opposed to welfare
Developmental social work: a process of development that balances social and economic development
Entrepreneur: an adventurous person with innovative skills and willing to take risks by investing in a risky project and shows great risk mitigation skills to succeed in their venture
Family: a social unit made up of one father, one or more mothers and one or more children who share one musha (permanent home)
Growth-oriented project: a project identified at the community and shows all potential for growth and sustainability based on utilization of local available resources and active local participation
Homehold: a home and people living on it. A home can have one or more households. A home can have one or more families.
Household: a house and its occupants (applies to urban houses that are often single)
Participation: a process whereby beneficiaries of community projects make decisions about their needs, priorities and interventions in line with their aspirations
Social capital: these are the social resources that a family or community has, for example, ubuntu that increases justice and familyhood, ujamaa that increases labour, umuganda that increases communityhood and machobane which increases sustainability.
Social enterprise: a community-based intervention originally started as social activity and grant funded initiative with capacity to raise income. Social enterprises are income generating projects that have escalated to another level of enterprise
Social work: an academic discipline and profession that embraces and enhances long-held methods of addressing life challenges in order to achieve social functioning, development, cohesion and liberation using diverse African indigenous knowledges and values enshrined in the family, community, society, environment and spirituality (African Journal of Social Work, 2020).
Ubuntu: a collection of values and practices that black people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. While the nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, they all point to one thing – an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world. the term ubuntu is expressed differently is several African communities and languages but all referring to the same thing. In Angola, it is known as gimuntu, Botswana (muthu), Burkina Faso (maaya), Burundi (ubuntu), Cameroon (bato), Congo (bantu), Congo Democratic Republic (bomoto/bantu), Cote d’Ivoire (maaya), Equatorial Guinea (maaya), Guinea (maaya), Gambia (maaya), Ghana (biako ye), Kenya (utu/munto/mondo), Liberia (maaya), Malawi (umunthu), Mali (maaya), Mozambique (vumuntu), Namibia (omundu), Nigeria (mutunchi/iwa/agwa), Rwanda (bantu), Sierra Leonne (maaya), South Africa (ubuntu/botho), Tanzania (utu/obuntu/bumuntu), Uganda (obuntu), Zambia (umunthu/ubuntu) and Zimbabwe (hunhu/unhu/botho/ubuntu). It is also found in other Bantu countries not mentioned here (Mugumbate and Chereni, 2020). Ubuntu community work and community development refers to interventions theoretically, pedagogically and practically grounded in ubuntu.
Ujamaa: cooperating and pulling together as a community to achieve self-help.
References and recommended readings
In writing this book, the authors avoided existing books on community work and community development because they were written from an elitist western point of view, that ignored rural work and development. The books used western theories, examples and case studies that do not address community needs of developing communities. We encourage readers and other writers, to be critical of the literature they read, cite and refer. In this chapter, we valued African theories, orature and personal experiences. The product, this chapter, is something we as authors are very proud of.
African Journal of Social Work (AJSW) (2020) Statement of Policy. Harare, National Association of Social Workers (NASWZ)
Bohwasi, P. (2000) Advancing entrepreneurship in Gutu: Zvinoda Madzimai Women’s Group
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